Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The best medicine

Well, I certainly hope that everyone who considered voting for Ole Whitey McCain in 2008 is breathing a huge sigh of relief with accompanying exaggerated forehead-wiping gesture. Whew! What a dodged bullet that was, eh?

And if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, please to check out Grumpy’s reaction to his party being unable to stop the health care reform bill:
"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year…they have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."
It goes on in typical McCain keep-away-from-my-Gran-Torino fashion.

In response, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid released the following statement.
Reid of course makes an excellent point about the revelation of McCain's brazen hypocrisy on the ol' "Country First" front.  I guess country only comes first when it's a Republican country.  Democratic countries can go fuck themselves, apparently.
"For someone who campaigned on ‘Country First’ and claims to take great pride in bipartisanship, it’s absolutely bizarre for Senator McCain to tell the American people he is going to take his ball and go home until the next election."


But Reid also, and in typical Democratic leadership fashion, misses the bullseye on one crucial point: the Republicans can't take their ball and go home, because IT'S NOT THEIR FUCKING BALL.  So, they can go home if they want to, but no one's going to chase after them and beg them to come back, nor is the scoring going to cease in their absence.

Yeah, the ball belongs to the Dems, and if the Republicans want to play, they have to play according to the rules of the playground, the most important of which are these:


1. Stop fucking whining about the rules.
2. Cop to your own fouls, if you want a call to go your way.


If you don't follow 1 & 2, then no one will ever want to pick you again, no matter how good you are.

Ah, but just like every thickheaded jackass bully you ever met in your childhood, the Republicans just can't seem to figure out why everyone is laughing at them.  They can only rage and stomp their feet and shout words whose meanings they do not understand, and then become even more enraged when they discover that their demonstrations have only made people laugh even louder.

And I think laughter is a perfectly fine reaction to have to all this.  Yes, it's troubling to hear their bench yell "Nigger" and "Faggot," and yes, it's heartbreaking to see them treat a sick man with a disrepect you wouldn't show to an organ grinder's monkey, but in the end, their histrionics have become so telling that it's just sorta sad.

The best was when Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said on the floor of the House, "If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the war between the states — the Great War of Yankee Aggression."

First of all, "free insurance card" is pretty funny.  Perhaps no one has ever hipped Broun to the fact that Congress is pretty much the only place where health insurance is still free. 

Secondly...The Great War of Yankee Agression.  You know, when the overly-agressive Yankee types tried to tell the Southern man what he could do with his own hard-earned darkies.

I told you it was sad.  Because they have no idea, no idea that we're onto them.  They think they're pretty clever, with all their talk of deficits, and future generations, and constitutionality, and interstate commerce, but really, it's all about the colored boy in their White House, giving away free health care to all his no-account jigaboo cousins.  It's all about health insurance welfare queens, my friends.  Because some people, and yes, they're mostly old white dudes, believe that every thing they have ever gotten they have earned, whereas every thing non-old white dudes have ever gotten has been handed to them, completely undeserved.  This is a necessary belief, if they are to continue to perpetuate a system that favors them, you understand.   They must believe it, in order for the planet they inhabit to remain in place, and not get knocked out of its orbit of presumption like some juiced-up Barry Bonds dinger.

So we may as well laugh at them, because there is certainly no talking to them.  How do you talk to someone who has free health care from the government, but doesn't think anyone else deserves it?  How do you talk to someone who believes that a seven hundred billion dollar mistake in the desert is a bargain, but that same amount spent on the health of our people is a scam of historic proportions?  How do you talk to someone who, when confronted with the tragedy of the thousands of people who die in this country every year due to lack of coverage, wants to quibble over how many thousand?

And in the end, we may as well laugh because this bill that they have demonized, does precious little to deserve its reputation.  It doesn't really help people who can not afford coverage at all.  It makes health care more expensive for many women.  Many of its most important reforms don't take place for years.  It's a step.  A very small step.  And very dearly paid for by those who fought for it, yes, but much more dearly paid for, of course, by those it disappoints.

19 comments:

Moderator said...

Excellent as usual.

Lisa said...

I was waiting to hear your thoughts on this.

GETkristiLOVE said...

It's a step but it's so depressing to think about how long it's going to actually take before health care, and the economy for that matter, will really change.

Dad E said...

Compared to their pathetic efforts and dialogue Don Quixote is a vision of rationality and wisdom.

Too bad the bill doesn't require brain scans of Congress to see whose brains can't connect the dots.

Don't stop, keep after them. Expose their evil.

Some Guy said...

Awesome.

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

I'm on Medicare and I pay over one hundred dollars a month for it. Plus I pay a monthly copay to get my generic prescriptions. Where do I sign up for that free medical card that guy was talking about? It may not be much to him but the over one hundred dollars a month I pay every month is quite a bit to me since I am on a very fixed income.

kittens not kids said...

my health insurance that I get through being a grad student with teaching responsibilities will end in August. After that, I'm up shit creek with no paddle and no way to pay for the prescriptions that keep my brain on track.

maybe this Rep Broun person has some extra free health care cards he can hand out?

I think the best sentence in this post, possibly anywhere on this subject, is: "How do you talk to someone who has free health care from the government, but doesn't think anyone else deserves it?"

because RIGHT ON.

Marshall Park Slope said...

yep, was awaiting this one...

the 2nd to last paragraph should be everyone's facebook status for an entire month...can all that fit on a bumper sticker?

brilliant vikki.thank you.

Simon Glickman said...

Fantastic. I love you.

The next tragi-comic episode in the trashy GOP saga comes when the tea-party tide washes against the implacable rocks of big business on the immigration issue. I wonder who will prevail in THIS fight: the lumpenconservatariat - powerless, angry, ignorant, poor whites who want to deport all brown people post haste - or the corporatist wing of the party that depends on undocumented labor for its bottom line?

SJ said...

I've been reading how this healthcare bill mirrors almost exactly three bills put forth by Republicans, as far back as 1993. Exactly the same principles as the Republicans had in theirs show up in this one. McCain wanted madantory coverage in his plan. Mitt Romney's healthcare plan is now being called MORE liberal than this one, and the same guy crafted both of them. Heck, I even watched a story about how Richard fucking Nixon wanted to enact much the same thing while in office, but then, well, he resigned and so, didn't get to do that.

If all this brouhaha ISN'T about the 'colored boy in the White House,' I guess I don't know what is.

Unknown said...

This experience tells you something about the mindset of conservative thinkers that I hear (in a much smaller way) through Habitat for Humanity stories. People who don't want "those people" living next to them, etc. The immediate assumption is that someone else is getting something for nothing, whereas they have clawed their way to what they have.

It's my view that, much like you can't cheat an honest man, you can't draw symapthy from a person who feels they deserve everything they can pry from its moorings.

Life As I Know It Now said...

Excellent on all points. This post rocks :)

dguzman said...

Hey, those righties are PRO-LIFE! Just not YOUR life. Or mine. Or any of my brothers and sisters of color. Or any of the others who, like me, are un- or under-employed. Or anyone not rich enough to play golf at their country club. Or...

Mnmom said...

Right On!!!!
"Free insurance card"? Where can I get one of those? My insurance card costs me over $800 per month!!!!

Professor Chaos said...

Yeah, we're all real proud of Paul Broun down here in GA. Thank God our rep. is John Lewis.

Distributorcap said...

it so nice to know we have mature gentlemen like John McCain playing in the sandbox.

Anonymous said...

That's funny! I've been to a few Tea Parties to observe, and never once did I hear the N-Word or the F-Word. All I saw were a bunch of middle aged hard working people who picked up their own trash. The would bring food just like a Church Social, and share it, feeding even the Cops, Blacks, and Mexicans. Come to think of it, some of the Tea Partiers were Blacks and Mexicans. Most of them were women.

I must be going to the wrong Tea Parties. Could you tell me where the Tea Parties are which exhibited those swastikas, wore those hoods, and shouted the N & F words? Those people were ran out of the Tea Parties I observed.

I want to see the REAL Haters, Rock Throwers, Loonies, and Lunatic Fringe. Which Tea Parties should I be going to to see this riffraff?

vikkitikkitavi said...

Dear Anonymous Tea Party "Observer":

If you haven't figured out that your own experiences don't equal the truth for all people, everywhere, then I'm not sure what I can say.

And don't ask me to do your work for you. A simple Google will turn up all the teabag dumbassery your inexperienced brain can stand.

Prudential Life said...

Nice article. very interesting, thanks for sharing.